Uninventivegate

In response to someone claiming that I didn't update my blog enough, here is a new post. It will deal with another pet peeve, similar to my previous ones about '-aholisms'. Coincidentally, it also deals with an improper suffix being added on to words.

(somewhat interesting sidenote: if i waited one week it would be a year to the day since my last pet peeve post, but we'll make it early this year. maybe this can become an annual post-birthday activity for me).

So here it is. This one was spawned by this CBC article. Go have a read then come back.

Now, the original Watergate scandal was named such because (according to Wikipedia) it "began with five men being arrested after breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972."

That seems quite sensical to me. What does NOT seem sensical is adding the suffix -gate to any sort of mild scandal which occurred afterwards.

NAFTA-gate?? Really? That just seems like lazy journalism. There are MANY WORDS in the English language that we can use to accurately describe events. Even just calling it a scandal would be more reasonable that attaching these 4 letters to the end of a word.

Wikipedia also maintains a "List of scandals with -gate suffix" - that's how widespread and ridiculous this problem is!! Gates have NOTHING TO DO with any of these issues! (they had nothing to do with the Nixon issue either, it was merely a PART of the name where relevant events occurred). Nor are any of these issues NEARLY as important as the impeachment/resignation of an American president! I must say, my favourite from that list is "Spygate." I can just imagine some macho sports writers sitting around and thinking "well, they were caught spying, AND it's scandalous...let's call it Spygate!"

I'm all for the evolution and changing of languages, but let's do it in ways that enhance their quality, not ways that dumb it down (and illogically at that). Who's with me?